“Energy cannot be created or destroyed” Wise men of Science tell us that is how the universe works. Yet if one were to ask a child how things are made, their answers may tell a different tale. They will tell you of monsters in the closet, and things that go bump in the night, of gnomes, elves, pixies, unicorns and great dragons playing across the dreamscape their imaginations make of this world. At least, that is how we take their words: the imaginative musings of children and nothing more. Yet that is how we all once saw this world, a place of magic and mystery, before those older and “wiser” could tell us otherwise. We knew why things made scary noises at night, why you needed a nightlight to keep them at bay, why things sometimes go missing, and why only one sock ever seems to vanish in the dryer. Like muscles beneath the flesh, there lies an entire world beneath the fabric our own that is responsible for these abnormalities. Nothing disappears, no one is truly forgotten, and our homes, or at least what lies within those walls, remember us long after we're gone. Domovois, Lares, Penates, Tawaret, Bes, teraphim, Brownies, Tonttu, Tomtes. We have known them by many names, those household spirits which watch over our homes and those inside. The truth is something just as magical but scarcely as phantasmal. In the walls, in the trees, in the brushes and in the stone they've resided, as long as man has walked the Earth. They are little creatures, most under half a foot tall and a world unto themselves, one we long ago lost the imagination to notice. Many kinds populate their world, each necessary for their existence and safeguarding our own. There are those that take your socks, though they mean no harm. Others are fascinated by all that is shiny, still others devour the dust bunnies. Perhaps their greatest asset is one which we never notice at all and even they are unaware of. For all of their good and benign nature, there exists yet another world on which we never lay eyes. One of shadow and chill, of tooth and claw, of hate and malice. They take no socks, but instead sleeping babes from cradles. They are the bump in the night, an ever present cacophony of banshees that claw at our windows, demanding entrance. They are the kidnappers, the breath-takers, the Foul that creeps into the lungs of the sick and old and smothers the last breath. They are the gnashing of teeth, the many screams mounting to the cry of Legion. They are the black Hunger that feeds inward upon the universe, a starved Ouroboros, so ravenous it would consume Creation and finally itself. The Dark is held at bay only by the Light those benevolent little creatures emit, one that mankind long ago ceased to believe in... This is a tale for those who might still find faith in their Light. The Luminaries, all content, characters, and related information, graphics and writings © 2008 David Dees.